Recommended listening for the chapter: Literally any Taylor Swift song.

The Boiling Kettle

He was standing at the kitchen counter, buttering toast. Finally, two days after he'd come back, Remus was being less trepidatious about helping himself to food and utensils, and to using the kitchen like it was theirs. Because it was. They were a unit and they were going to stay that way. He'd been asleep when Tonks had woken up feeling nauseous (morning sickness was back with vengeance) and, after throwing up into the toilet, she'd left him sleeping while she went for a run. Exercising wasn't currently topping Tonks' list of preferred activities, but she forced herself into her jogging gear and out of the flat- losing her job and getting pregnant meant she needed to train harder. She'd run four miles, up to Gorton station and the reservoir, then apparated home and walked into the kitchen to see Remus making toast. Perhaps he was turned at at angle Tonks didn't usually see him at, or because she was still huffing her breath back. Probably, it was a culmination of the tense conversations they'd been having the last few days, combined with having been outside into Manchester, seeing the flats and the streets and the trainline and the reservoir; the Muggle world chuntering obliviously on. But something about him looked different. Not unfamiliar, not more clear, just...well, different was the only word Tonks could think of. And she looked at him, quietly spreading Flora, Tonks knew, with certainty, how wrong he was. She tipped fully into knowing how seriously messed-up Remus' head was, and not in a pitiful way. She had felt so much sympathy and sadness for him (more, she knew, than Remus was comfortable with), but this was different. It wasn't even understanding- it was resignation. Remus was like a drunk, a gambler, a womaniser. That was the type of unreliability Tonks was dealing with. Except her competition wasn't the bottle or the dice or other women. What distracted him, fixated him, what Tonks would always be up against, is the self-loathing and self-pity in his own head. She'd spat those words at him before, but it was only now Tonks understood how all-encompassing they were. He wasn't being self-obsessed. He was self-obsessed. All the time.

And she was allowed to think that because Merlin knew she'd given him enough sympathy for it all. She had a right to be angry about Remus' messed-up view of the world and all the ways he'd mucked her around. She was allowed not to be sorry for the fact that a werewolf had made him this way- actually, she could be furious at him. Not Fenrir Greyback or the Ministry or Death Eaters or their whole bloody society- just Remus fucking Lupin, that capricious man who was too wrapped up in his own narcissism to stick around when he found out he'd got her pregnant. Tonks believed he was back for good now, but he would, could, never fully commit to her and to their child. There was no point trying to make him. It would be like asking him to change his eye colour, or become French. Remus just couldn't do it, he wasn't made that way. He could not not be self-centred. He was and always would be.

"You're so fucked up," Tonks mumbled, ""Aren't you? You're- Merlin, you're such a mess. I can't make excuses for you anymore. I can't say oh, it's not his fault, he's a werewolf. It is your fault,"

He stopped buttering his toast, evidently blank about how to react. Tonks' heart was hurling itself against her ribs, frightened and uncomfortable because she'd never said anything like this to him before. She'd never said anything to hurt him, and she didn't even want this for him to hurt him. He just needed to know.

She didn't feel livid, just exhausted and sad, and she realised that she couldn't bear to be standing across the room from him any longer. She needed to be touching him and being held by him. Tonks stepped across and wrapped her arms around Remus' middle, pressing her face against his spiky, uncomfortable collar bones. She'd reckoned he'd put weight back on since he came home from the werewolf camp, though now his body felt scrawny again. Tonks leant into her husband, feeling deflated. He kept telling her he'd wreck her life, and he was right. Not because he was a werewolf but because he was so much to cope with. Everything had been an emotional onslaught. When he was here, when he wasn't here. When he didn't want to be with her, when he did. When he was happy, when he was depressed. There was so...much. And that wasn't even counting the depth of her feelings for him and all the emotions he'd opened up inside her. And that wasn't counting the fact that she was pregnant.

"I thought because I made you happy I could make you better, but I can't, can I? You can't change who you are,"

Tonks looked up miserably. Remus' eyes were closed, and the instinct to panic that she'd upset him kicked it. Oh God, was he about to cry? And then Tonks winced because she wasn't supposed to feel guilty if the truth upset him. The truth was what they both deserved.

Remus' face moved and she realised that he wasn't about to cry- he was about to kiss her. They'd hadn't kissed properly since before she found out about the baby, and Tonks didn't reckon he'd ever kissed her when she was upset or angry with him. He'd always shrunk into himself instead.

His lips were cold, and he tasted of tea, and he tasted right. They were right, and they needed this. She accepted who she was in love with, and it was this weak, fucked-up mess of a man. This was her husband and the father of her child, and they had to keep going; keep hacking their way through this war, and the war in his head.

Eventually, their mouths broke apart, but Remus kept hold of her.

"Thank you. I...thank you for saying that," he rasped, "I think I needed you to say that,"

He swallowed and cleared his throat. "I didn't understand how you can love me despite my condition. I neglected to consider how you can love me despite how I've treated you. I don't want you to make excuses for me. There's no excuse for what I did, and for what I have done since the beginning,"

They looked at each other miserably.

"I know it's on me too," Tonks sighed, "We talked about that didn't we? I know I haven't listened to you enough, I've been trying to fix you too much, I haven't…I dunno, I've been looking at this wrong. You, us,"

I sometimes get the impression that you see me as a perfect person whose just got a part broken, and if you love me enough you can fix it. It isn't like that.That's what he'd told her. And he was right. Tonks has believed that the key was thrusting tenderness and support at Remus. Encouragement, fun, being reassured that being a werewolf didn't mean he was dangerous and contaminated, being shown how special he was. That was what he needed, right? He needed her to prop him up, try to push him up. He needed love. But she couldn't love the werewolf out of him. Love wasn't going to cure Remus of the illness, and the way the illness made people treat him, and of losing all his friends, and of all the shit clogging up his mind. Love was not the solution (Tonks felt a blend of disappointment and grim satisfaction that Dumbledore wasn't here to see that). With a flinch, Tonks felt angry at herself for not realising this sooner. She was supposed to be an Auror. She was trained to deal in laws, pragmatics and justice, not airy-fairy ideas about love conquering all. Shame shuddered through her when she thought how disappointed Mad-Eye would be if he knew she'd been so easily swayed.

But Mad-Eye was dead.

She propped her forehead against Remus' shoulder and gnawed her lip. Everything had been so mental the past week that she'd had to box up her grief for Mad-Eye. The last thing he would want her to do was have a meltdown over him at a time like this. To not think about his death was to honour his death. Mad-Eye was probably the only other person who'd understand that.

The thought that she'd let him down stung but, Tonks realised, this had never happened to Mad-Eye. This was Quidditch with different goalposts. She knew he'd had girlfriends (Tonks had got the impression that Mad-Eye was actually a bit of a ladykiller back in the day), but never anything serious because he was married to his work. He had never fallen in love with, waited a year for, got married and got pregnant by a werewolf. He had never needed to maintain a relationship with someone as fickle and maddening as Remus. He'd never faced a war like this either: the first war was a long conflict punctuated by periods of intensity. It hadn't had an annual appearance of You-Know-Who himself, it hadn't had a target like Harry, and it hadn't seen the Death Eaters take over the Ministry and Hogwarts. The war now had turned the world on his head in a way it never had before.

Remus hadn't been in a war like this either. He was one of the only survivors of the first war left in the Order, but did that even count for much anymore? He'd told Tonks that he went to see Harry, Hermione and Ron (he didn't said where, presumably reckoning that its safest if as fewer people as possible know their location. He's right, though Tonks has a pretty good guess for where they're hiding) to ask if he could join them in the work they're doing for Dumbledore. Despite all Tonks' effort and sacrifices, when she had needed him most he'd run away and left her: jobless, nursing her injured and traumatised parents, and pregnant with his baby. He couldn't get out of his own head enough to see that, no matter how flabbergasted and afraid he felt, his family needed him. Her patience and care hadn't been enough. It couldn't be, and if it was real then she'd have to accept that. It didn't mean that she wasn't enough for him. It meant the concept of enough didn't exist, and the bar she had been desperately trying to reach for Remus, reach Remus to, wasn't real.

She felt old. She felt very, very married. This was what being married meant, how commitment and preservation were different to being in love. Tonks breathed deeply, squeezed her eyes to stop anymore tears leaking, looking up and Remus and said as clearly as she could:

"Do you think, when this is all over we could...I don't want to try to fix you anymore but maybe we could get you some help. A potion or someone to talk to or something. I dunno. Is it okay if I just want to help you?"

She could see the effort Remus was making to maintain eye contact. "Yes," he said, then, "and it does help. That you make me happy. I can't solve everything, but it helps. Please know that,"

"I know,"

But that wasn't the most important part. "An we'll try and sort something out for you one day? Yeah?"

"Yes,"

She kissed him again. More gingerly, experimentally. Usually kissing him made her tingle and smile, but this was different. This was a kiss of grim determination. They had to do this. Had to keep talking, had to keep being physical, had to keep ramming their way through all the disasters. She'd thought that she'd had to fight tooth and nail for their wedding. Well that had been fast hasn't it. It was their marriage they was really going to have to fight for.

"D'you think we should have sex?" Tonks suggested, "Not now, but...later. Tomorrow. Whenever you're ready really, but I think we should. We need to,"

They'd had brilliant sex in the first few days after they married, then stopped when the full moon got close. Which Tonks had thought was fine. She'd never been the type of person who needed loads of sex, least of all with Remus for whom the whole thing was difficult and complicated. And because it was difficult and complicated, it had been easier to shrug, or to roll her eyes while Remus worked out what he wanted, or just put it off and move on. She'd been terrified of pressuring or rushing him. Any decent person would be patient and understanding, assure him it was fine, focus on all the other fun, interesting stuff they did and all the other ways he was a fantastic boyfriend. Right? But had she dressed kindness up as avoidance? Had she actually been dodging the subject all along? Acquiescing to Remus' dislike of talking about sex, like she acquiesced to so much bloody else about him.

Tonks wasn't surprised when he looked taken aback by the question, because she'd never asked him anything like that before. Tonks winced, realising that was another way she'd been rubbish at being Remus' wife. She'd been trying so hard in completely the wrong ways. Tonks squashed her forehead against Remus' chest, and his shirt buttons pressed into her skull.

"Yes," he answered, "Alright,"

That's what he said when he decided he wanted to marry her. So long ago. Less than a month.

"We need to keep going. Keep being married, keep doing married stuff," she said, lifting her face from his shirt and gesturing between them. Then she felt guilty in case this was pressuring him. Merlin's beard, he was so difficult. The lines between accommodating him and giving herself the easy way out were incredibly, bewilderingly blurred.

"I agree. I want to keep being married to you," said Remus.

And now was the time she had not to let the emotions get he better of her: not to give him a beam or a snog. Not to tell him me too. Not, for God's sake, to make a joke. What Tonks had to do, she realised, was listen. She replayed Remus' words in her mind. I agree. I want to keep being married to you. Alright, she'd heard him, she'd replayed it. She'd understood what he'd meant. What else was there for her to do? Was she supposed to reply back?

"Err, thanks. I'm glad you said that," she answered, unconvinced at the quality of this response.

Remus nodded. He picked up the slide of toast and took a bite. He always ate slowly, chewing every mouthful loads of times to make it last longer. Tonks wondered if she should stop pitying him for stuff like that. Perhaps sympathy was something else she should no longer be hurling at her husband. And he'd told her, not in exact words but clearly enough, that she could not empathise with his experiences. What she needed, Tonks knew, was to accept it. It sounded easier- acceptance didn't require the sorrow, pity, imagination to empathise. But the inaction was why it was harder. She'd always hated not doing anything.

Tonks detached herself from him and drifted towards the bedroom to get changed, but as she was halfway through the door way he asked abruptly, "Shall we order a takeaway?"

She spun around. "What?"

"Have a night in with a curry,"

Tonks almost started to laugh at Remus suggesting they eat a takeaway curry before sex. Almost.

"I want to keep being married to you, and that's something we used to do together," said Remus firmly. Forcefully, almost- his voice sounded hard and determined. His eyes had grabbed onto hers and wouldn't let her look away. She didn't want to. Remus wasn't walking on eggshells, being meek and apologetic. He wasn't grovelling or mollifying. He'd never been able to spoil her with presents, though he could try to spoil her with promises and deference. Those would be easy for him, and they weren't what Tonks wanted. She'd always wanted to build him up. She'd never wanted his apologies, only his assurances. She'd always wanted him to know what he deserved and what he didn't- right now, yes he deserved her anger but he didn't deserve to grovel and beg and hate himself. He didn't deserve to take the easy route out. They both deserved him taking the hard road, trying, being the version he needed to be. The Remus who was fierce and dogged in his pursuit of their marriage, their solid and happy future. He was showing her a grit and determination she'd never seen in him before. And he wasn't doing it for her. He was doing this with her.

Tonks felt a rattle of gratitude, but she didn't reckon it was a thank-you sort of thing. Instead, she suggested, "Yeah, okay. Tonight?"

Her mouth wanted to add sarcastically that her busy schedule of unemployment meant she didn't have much on this evening, or to warn him with a queasy smirk that given morning sickness situation, the curry might not stay down for too long. But Tonks resisted the quips. They'd make jokes again one day. He'd perform funny little summaries when she asked about the book he was reading. He make a big show of looking baffled by all her hair products. She would tell him silly anecdotes from work. He would draw daft cartoons of them. He would tickle her, making her writhe and guffaw, and she would try her best to do the same to him, even though Remus was about as ticklish as a brick. One day, Tonks fantasised, when Remus suggested ordering an Indian, her response would be to chuckle you bloody love curry, and to tease him what is it with Welsh people and Indian food?

But not now. Not yet.

Remus nodded, and Tonks headed off to shower and get dressed properly. Remus' pyjamas were folded at the end of his side of the bed. That hadn't happened since he'd come home- in the last couple of days, Remus had seemed embarrassed about leaving any of his possessions anywhere Tonks might notice them. She hadn't seen the suitcase which had gone with Remus when he left, though he must have brought it home because he was wearing the clothes and shoes he'd taken. He'd worn pyjamas to bed but Tonks hadn't seen them after he was dressed. His toothbrush, towel and razor hadn't been left in the bathroom after he used it. It was as if Remus thought it would be impertinent for Tonks to see his possessions now, as if the existence of his toothbrush in their bathroom was an infringement. So the reappearance of his pyjamas at the end of their bed was reassuring: he was was cautious and abashed about existing back in this space, showing that he knew this was their space. Tonks felt a stab of sorrow, because she thought he knew that before. Moving his stuff in here had been such a joyous moment, and he hadn't seemed cautious at all. They'd been giddy to be building a home for them both. She'd got a kick out of seeing his belongings in her flat.

It wasn't a kick to see his pyjamas back on the end of her bed, though it was a kind of grim satisfaction. And maybe that's what they needed. They'd got back together by getting engaged, and married only a few days later, and Dumbledore had just died and everything had been so intense. They hadn't been happy- they'd been euphoric. Remus' moodswings were more mercurial than ever. He hadn't withdrawn- he'd closed up completely. Instead of Down Remus and Quite Happy Remus, there had been Despair Remus and Deliriously Ecstatic Remus. The wider gap meant that Tonks hadn't been Concerned For Remus, she'd been Panicking About Remus. Or, she thought ashamedly, maybe she'd been panicking about their relationship. The whiplash of being back together so suddenly after the anguish of a year thinking he'd get himself slaughtered by Greyback had made her more frantic to keep chucking her love at him. And when he was happy he'd seemed to like that, appreciate it. She thought she'd got through to him at last. Merlin's pants, the whole time they'd both been hysterical maniacs, controlled by grief and terror and endorphins. The thought made her tearful, because it hadn't felt like that at the time. Before the full moon, when he'd curled up on her lap on the sofa while she held his hand and stroked his hair, and she spoke French to him because it was supposed to be loving and soothing, but hers was so bad that it just made him laugh- that hadn't felt hysterical. The love which had made their baby had felt warm and meaningful, not frantic.

Tonks met her own eyes in her bedroom mirror. If Remus was fucked up, what did that make her- the woman who wouldn't let go of the selfish, flaky narcissist? The women who had also been sucked in by emotion? Who believed him when he told her he wanted to come home and to be their baby's father? The woman who wanted to bring a child into all this? Tonks' eye caught sight of her reflection's hair. When Remus left a few days ago, it had stayed pink and spiky, and when she'd tried changing it, it had worked the way it was supposed to. This was her. She was the person who made her hair pink or turquoise. The person who, when others suggested she might want to use her Metamorphmagi powers to be slimmer, taller or daintier, would laugh and give herself a pig nose. Making herself look unique and making other people giggle were better uses of her powers than continuously editing herself to look perfect. She was the person born into the dangerous marriage of a couple forbidden to be together, who had fought for their love. For her.

She was the person who had worked and studied demanded extra homework for years to get into Auror training. Who had refused to listen to anybody who who said but or really? or but what job are you actually going to do?, and to anybody who pointed out how difficult it was to get accepted into Auror training or who mentioned, in a hushed tone, that her mum's family connections would hardly do Tonks any favours. She was the person who Mad-Eye Moody had taken on as his protégée, even though he didn't do protégées. She'd probably ended up knowing Mad-Eye better than any other living person, and who he had lined up to take run the Auror Department one day. And she was the person who had joined the Order with him, working one dangerous, exciting, tiring job because it was her work and her passion and it paid the bills, and another working one dangerous, exciting, tiring job for no money, because it would help people and save people and it was the right thing to do. She had missed parties, birthdays, holidays, rest. She worked on no sleep. She had lied. She remained loyal to two organisations who were growing increasingly apart.

She was the person who never got on with her caustic and bullheaded mother because, deep down, she knew she they were too alike. She was the person who people often sighed was a bit much, a bit of a handful, a bit of a nutter. And yeah, maybe only a nutter would fall in love with and put with Remus, but this was who she had always been. Remus hadn't changed her. She would have always made this choice. This was the person she was.

Tonks rubbed a hand across her stomach. It was odd- sometimes she thought of the baby as a sentient being, knowing what was going on from inside there and wanting to be born. At other times the baby seemed just an idea, a blank page which didn't count as an individual. It was just a thing, and what mattered what that the thing was made by her and Remus and their love, and the thing was unlikely and astonishing, and the fact that an unlikely astonishing thing had happened during the war made the thing even more special. The specialness of it still made her glow glowing, though with less of the fizz she had felt before. It had felt like she'd been given an opportunity. Now it felt like a responsibility.

God, this was all getting a bit serious, wasn't it? The last few days had been constant anxiety and bewilderment and woe. Tonks made her hair flatter at the sides, and spiked upwards further at the top. She winked at herself in the mirror, because if she couldn't have a laugh and a flirt with her husband yet she'd have to do it with herself for now.

But one day, she re-iterated fiercely, they would. They weren't trying harder this time- they were trying better. And that meant that they would succeed.


Thank you for reading. I'm not sure how well this chapter turned out, so constructive criticism is welcome.